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Chaillot Papers

Chaillot Papers are the Institute's flagship publications. Written by external experts as well as the Institute’s Senior Analysts, and based on collective work or individual research, they deal with all subjects of current relevance to the Union’s security.

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This paper opens the debate on cooperation with Iran as an alternative to the West’s current confrontational approach. It proposes détente and eventual partnership as a basis for addressing nuclear concerns, as well as Iran’s increasingly influential role in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The tension between interdependence and power politics will shape the future of the international system. It is in the interest of the European Union to engage established and aspiring global powers in a sustained dialogue on how to confront pressing common challenges.

Where is Ukraine going? As this Chaillot Paper endeavours to show, Ukraine itself has great potential to either stabilise or destabilise the region. Therefore, the question of Ukraine’s future orientation is of crucial importance for European security in general.

Is there an ‘Albanian question’? If so, what is it? Is it a traditional ‘national question’, centred on the dream of a ‘Greater Albania’ that would gather in all the Albanian communities in the Balkans? Many outside observers, in particular among the Albanians’ neighbours in the Balkans, see it that way and fear its destabilising consequences, but none of the contributors to this Chaillot Paper finds this scenario convincing.

Over the last ten years, the EU Special Representatives (EUSRs) have pioneered EU foreign policy in countries and regions of direct interest to the Union. EUSRs are a face of the Union, enhancing its visibility, and they give it a voice, seeking to deliver a single message to local and international partners, playing an important role in EU foreign policy.

For six decades the United States has supported European integration, yet many Americans have an ambivalent attitude towards the European Union. Some Americans see the EU as the culmination of historic efforts to ensure peace, stability and democracy on the continent, while others consider the Union an elaborate scheme to create a rival to US hegemony. Still others dismiss the EU as irrelevant.

Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans is an issue that has been much discussed. The countries of the region are today much more closely connected through various cooperation schemes than they were seven years ago. This is a success that should not be underestimated. Today the Western Balkans is an emerging region in transition, where economic development is underway and in which cooperation is increasingly seen as an obvious choice, rather than a last-resort option.

The attacks of September 11 2001 spectacularly demonstrated that America’s main security challenges did not stem from traditional power rivalries but rather from ‘grey areas’, failed or badly governed states which are breeding grounds for extremism. But overthrowing tyrants is not enough to create a stable democracy and can even complicate matters, as events between 2003 and 2005 in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt have shown.

In 2000 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, Women, Peace and Security, which calls for ‘gender mainstreaming’. International organisations, governments and national militaries have become increasingly aware of the unintended gendered side-effects of peacekeeping operations, including incidents of prostitution, trafficking in women and the exploitation of local women and men in post-conflict societies.